


On And Off Like The Crosslights

by zarrents



Series: Song Fics [3]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 02:26:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5273078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarrents/pseuds/zarrents
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Zayn had been on and off for a while until one day they were just...off<br/>AU based on No Pressure by Justin Bieber</p>
            </blockquote>





	On And Off Like The Crosslights

Harry sits on the right side of the bed thinking about how cold the left side looks right now, pillow not dented in the slightest, sheets looking unused and empty. Zayn’s not here to tell him to lay back down, get some sleep, save whatever he's thinking about until the morning. They both know their relationship is kind of fucked up, that this isn’t what couples are supposed to do. But him and Zayn have their own dynamic: fight, break up, talk, make up, and repeat. They’ll admit it’s not the best, but it works for them, or at least it used to. 

They’ve been known for their on again-off again relationship that’s lasted for two and a half years now. Right now is the “off again” period that started as soon as Zayn saw Harry chatting up the barista at Starbucks. To anyone else it would’ve just looked like a friendly conversation between an employee and a customer, but Zayn knew the intentions behind Harry’s words were anything but friendly. This wasn’t even the worst thing Harry’s done, but Zayn had hit his limit, couldn't wait around until a conversation from behind a counter turned into more. So he ended it…again. 

It’s been two weeks since they broke up which is the longest break they’ve had so far. Usually, Zayn would be ringing him up after the second day asking if he wanted to “talk things out” which almost always ended in the bedroom. Up until this point the longest they’d been broken up was eight days, Zayn finally taking Harry back after he’d set up a candlelit dinner in their small apartment. But this time was different somehow, Harry knew as soon as Zayn walked out the door as he’s done countless times before. This time there was no “see you soon” undertone in Zayn’s voice as he left. There was nothing there but exhaustion and hopelessness.

Harry sits on the bed and thinks, really thinks about how much better off Zayn would be without him in his life to screw things up. It’s three in the morning and he knows Zayn’s asleep but that doesn’t stop him from picking up his cracked phone that he’d thrown at a wall after one of his and Zayn’s notorious arguments. He dials Zayn’s number but hovers over the “call” button for a good five minutes pondering what to say and how to say it. He eventually builds up enough courage to call and is shocked when it goes to voicemail, though he shouldn’t be since this isn’t a normal hour for people to be calling at. He waits restlessly as the automated message plays since Zayn can’t be bothered to set a personal one. 

Once the tone sounds, Harry takes a deep breath in and out, knowing that this apology has to be far better than the ones of his past, This one is what could make or further break their currently non-existent relationship. “Hey,” he starts, biting his tongue before he can add his usual “babe” at the end of it. “I know you’re asleep, fuck I probably should be too, but I can’t stop thinking about you. That sounds so cliché but I honestly can’t. How you make our 30-degrees-below-zero apartment feel a thousand times warmer every time you smile. How you’d always be the only one to laugh when I told jokes just to make me happy. How you would stand in the kitchen and just stare at me instead of helping with diner. I miss everything about you.”

He has to pause because that’s not at all what he planned to say, but he couldn’t help it. He loves Zayn so much and he doesn’t tell him half as much as he should. He feels the heavy tears forming and decides to wrap up his message before his voice gets too watery. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m rushing you back into this okay? Take as long as you need, there’s no rush. Just know, Zayn, that I love you, and I’m willing to do anything and everything to make this work again.” He doesn’t know what else to say after that, so he hangs up. 

He places his phone on the bedside table and wipes his now sweaty palms on his pajama pants before falling back onto the spring mattress. He stares up at the dimmed ceiling light and can't help but think of all the times he and Zayn had laid here together. Laid in this full size bed that was probably too small for the two of them but they never complained. They'd eat dinner there, cartons of Chinese takeout on display as re-runs of Fresh Prince played on their small TV. This bed had too many memories for Harry to handle, he concludes as he makes his way to the uncomfortable couch that sits in the living room. 

Zayn wakes up on the left side of the bed in Doniya's guest room feeling ten times worse than he did when he fell asleep. He looks to the right side of the bed, which is almost as neat as it was when he got here. He never veers to the right in his sleep or even tries to lay on that side, that's Harry's side even if Harry's not here. He picks his phone up from where it lays on top of the pile of discarded clothes from yesterday and checks to see if he has any notifications. The first thing he sees is a text from Doniya saying she'll be at the shops all day and that she'd left him some breakfast in the kitchen. After the breakup, she'd been more than welcoming when Zayn had said he needed somewhere to stay while he tries to find his own place.

When he sees he's got a voicemail from Harry he feels his heart swell and deflate all at once. He knows he should be elated that he's even thinking about him, but he's just not in the mood to hear some half assed, 10 second apology just because Harry's gotten bored. He doesn't want to hear it but he does anyway, regretting his choice as soon as he hits play. Zayn can feel his throat close slightly when he hears Harry's raspy voice through his phone. He listens with teary eyes as Harry rambles about all the things he misses about Zayn, things he's never told Zayn before. He hasn't heard this much emotion in Harry's voice since they first started dating, when he'd tell him he loved him and list all the reasons why into the early hours of the morning. He missed that Harry, the Harry he fell in love with two years ago and the Harry who's trying not to cry over the phone and 3 a.m. 

He listens to it a couple more times, just to take in the voice he hasn't heard in half a month, before deleting it. He knows that saving the message will only make him forgive Harry faster than he should, and he can't do that again. He has to see him, has to know that he meant what he said and it wasn't just his lack of sleep talking for him. He opens his messaging app and types out his text to Harry probably a million times not knowing how to keep both his eagerness and nerves in check. He finally composes something he's happy with and has to hit send before he can second guess himself. "Just got your message.. Can we talk?" Zayn looks at the message in the blue bubble for quite some time wondering if it's too short, too casual, too robotic, somehow not good enough for Harry to read. Before he can add a second message to compensate for whatever he thinks the first one is missing, a grey "..." bubble pops onto his screen and Zayn holds his breath, not prepared for what the reply may be. 

Harry types more than he needs to. He wants to send an unnecessarily long, heartfelt paragraph as one would when they're desperately trying to convince the person they love the most to take them back. But he deletes it all, doesn't want to push too hard and lose whatever progress he's made with Zayn so far, he can't risk that. Instead he settles for a "Sure. Six at our place?" He knows calling it "our place" is hopeful, but he doesn't know what else to call it. It is theirs, everything in it reminds Harry of Zayn and vice versa. They've made it their own and even though Zayn hasn't stepped foot in it for weeks, he knows it's still theirs. Harry, lost in his thoughts, jumped a bit when he heard the loud sound his phone made indicating he'd gotten a new text message. The ambiguous "Yeah." shouldn't excite him as much as it does, but if he's being honest, he didn't expect Zayn to respond at all. He needs to clean the place up a bit, not too much to where it looks unnaturally clean, but enough so that Zayn doesn't know how much of a mess he's been since the breakup.

Zayn paces back and forth in the carpeted room, going over how this "talk" between him and Harry is gonna play out. He knows he can't forgive him as quickly as he usually does, but after that message he left, he doesn't know what other choice he has. All he can do now is calm down enough to actually leave his room and function normally until he leaves. He eats the breakfast Doniya made: toast, mango slices, and turkey bacon, probably leftovers from what she'd made for herself. He eats slowly, focusing on what to wear and what to say tonight rather than the food in front of him. Once he's finished eating and washed his dishes off, he returns to his temporary bedroom and sifts through the closet. He doesn't know why he's thinking so hard about an outfit that he's only going to wear inside of his old, below-freezing apartment. He goes for his slightly baggy black jeans and a grey crewneck sweater, figuring he can wear any pair of his black shoes with it and it'd match. He's a bit proactive though, with it only being two o clock in the afternoon when he's not going to be seeing Harry for another six hours. He passes the time by watching TV before showering and shaving his face on the sides a bit, keeping some stubble but not a ridiculous amount.

As it gets closer to the time Zayn's supposed to come over, Harry puts a kettle on the stove, preparing to make black tea because he knows Zayn prefers that over coffee, says its more relaxed like him. As the water boils, Harry makes sure to double and triple check his hair in the mirror, styling it a different way each time, never satisfied until he decides to just leave it as it is. He has on a maroon turtleneck paired with black jeans and black socks rather than shoes since he's inside and walking around on carpeted floors. He moves the boiling teapot to an unlit burner and takes out two mugs, the matching set they'd gotten at Pier 1, the ones with the H and Z painted on. They always used those mugs in the winter when they'd drink hot chocolate and cuddle under the blankets to keep warm since their heater was eternally broken. Harry thought Zayn might like the sentiment as he placed the ceramic cups on the counter and filled them with hot water. Once he's put a teabag in each cup, he sets them down on the living room table parallel to the couch. There's only about five more minutes until Zayn arrives, so Harry turns on the TV and waits, his palms sweaty even though he's physically shivering from the cold. 

Zayn shows up exactly seven minutes before six o clock, but doesn't have the nerve to ring the dust-covered doorbell of the apartment. He had a key but didn't know if it would be rude or awkward to just walk in, so he stands on the makeshift porch and waits. While waiting he hears a faint whistle noise followed by a clink of dishes and knows Harry's making tea. He hopes it's black tea, that's his favorite and Harry knows that, Harry knows everything about him, probably more than he knows about himself. When he no longer hears the sound of mugs lightly tapping together, he rings the doorbell, knowing Harry probably just set them down on the table. He waits a while, contemplates using his key to let himself in, but then the door starts to open at an oddly slow pace. Harry leans his head out from behind the door, followed by the rest of his body before opening the front door all the way. Zayn takes him in, the long sleeve top he'd bought Harry on one of their anniversaries looking just as good as it always did. He trails his eyes the rest of the way down Harry's body, taking in his practically skintight jeans, then looks back up, hoping to meet Harry's eyes. But as he searches for eye contact, Harry studies Zayn like it's the last thing he'll ever get to see. 

Harry can feel Zayn's eyes desperately trying to meet his own but he can't look away yet, he hasn't seen him in so long, and after tonight he doesn't know when the next time will be. His hair looks better than he remembers, practically shaved on one side but long and wavy on the other, it's different but it suits him. He takes in every detail from the way he's got his sleeves pushed up to the elbow, or the way he doesn't tuck his pants into his boots, says it's too much work and pointless anyway. He doesn't realize just how long he's been staring until Zayn clears his throat, following it up with a small, soft smile. "Come in, I've, um, got tea on the table if you'd like." Harry doesn't really know how to invite someone into their own apartment really but tries his best to not make in awkward. He steps aside to let Zayn through, and bites back a smile of his own wen he takes his shoes off automatically, knowing that Harry hates the idea of shoes on carpet. As Zayn walks to the couch on his own accord it feels like everything's back to normal, like nothing ever happened, like they've gone back in time two weeks and Zayn decided to stay instead of go. 

Zayn picks up the mug with his initial on it and moves over on the couch to give Harry enough room to sit. He takes a few tentative sips, waiting for his mouth to get used to the hot liquid while Harry grabs the other mug and starts blowing air over the top hoping to cool it down some. They don't talk for a few minutes, the sound of the TV filling the room along with drinking noises coming from both of them. It's obvious that Harry's dying to speak but Zayn knows he won't because he's always like this, too caught up in what he wants to say and how to word it perfectly, and never ends up saying anything. "We should talk," Zayn starts for him. "I miss you, obviously," he sees the way Harry's face lights up with hope and is hesitant to say the rest of his sentence, "but I can't keep doing this back and forth shit with you. You're either all in this or you're not." Zayn talks more to his lap than he does to Harry, not wanting to see his reaction or hear his response. He's never made Harry choose between a fully committed relationship or no relationship, always afraid of him choosing the latter. He needs an answer though, he needs to know if it's worth it to even miss Harry anymore, to cry over him at night, to talk about how much he loves him to Doniya every single day until she makes up something about having to go to work early. He returns his attention to his tea which has cooled off enough for him to drink normally now as he waits for Harry to answer. 

Harry stares at his black socks contrasting the light beige carpet as Zayn talks, taking every word he says to heart. Of course he wants to give Zayn as much as he can but he doesn't want to disappoint him like he's done more times than he can count. "I wanna be all in this," he chooses his words carefully, needing to get across just how much he wants this, how much he needs this. Zayn looks up from his nearly empty mug, not sure what he was expecting Harry to say, but definitely not that. He continues, still not sure how to articulate what he wants to say, "but I can't, I won't make the same mistakes I always do. How about we start slow, just ease back into it. You don't have to move back in right away, we don't have to spend every minute of every day together. No rushing it, no pressure yeah?" He looks intently and uninterruptedly at Zayn as he says the last part, needing him to know that he doesn't have to dive head first back into this, he can take as long as he needs if it means they'll have each other again. 

"Yeah, slow sounds good," Zayn can't help but let a smile take over his face, wanting nothing more than to have all of Harry, even if it means taking it step by step. "Does takeout Chinese and Parks and Rec sound good as well? On the couch of course" Harry knows that Zayn's seen essentially every Fresh Prince episode by now, so he decides to change it up a bit. He also knows that dinner in their old shared bedroom would ruin all hopes of taking things slow. For the first time in a long time, Zayn lets out a genuine laugh because Harry really does get him, he gets him like no one in his life has ever been able to. He gets up from the couch, grabbing his mug and extending his hand for Harry to take as they both make their way to the kitchen to put their dishes in the sink. He leads them to the front door, already putting his boots on before realizing he'd agreed without actually using his words. Harry knew he'd basically said yes already, but he says it out loud anyway, "Sounds perfect."

**Author's Note:**

> thanks aileen for the idea :)


End file.
